THE FLYING NUN
A BEHIND-THE-SCENES SISTER ACT HELPED MAKE SALLY FIELD’S LOVABLE CHARACTER SHINE
Sally Field needed the help of a seasoned vet to soar in the ’60s sitcom.
On the set of The Flying Nun, a 20-year-old Sally Field got some heavenly guidance while playing Sister Bertrille opposite co-star Madeleine Sherwood. “Madeline was a huge mucketymuck in the acting world,” Shelley Morrison, the show’s Sister Sixto, explains to Closer about the seasoned actress who portrayed Rev. Mother Superior Placido. “She took Sally under her wing and allowed Sally’s talent to burst through and reach all kinds of amazing heights!”
Sally, who was fresh off her run as TV’s Gidget when she landed the role in 1967, has been open about her disdain for Nun’s outlandish premise at a time she yearned to be a serious actor. Still, the show was popular enough to air for three seasons. “Part of its appeal may have come from its calculated attempt to cash in on the success of Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music two years earlier,” TV Guide senior critic Matt Roush tells Closer, “but it was so inoffensive in its giddy escapism that it proved a good fit with Bewitched and That Girl.”
Sally’s frustrations with the material, however, led to her becoming deeply depressed. “Maybe it was entertaining to people who watched it, but it wasn’t for somebody that [had] to do it,” Sally says. Adds Shelley, “The show was sweet, but let’s face it — it wasn’t Tennessee Williams. It was difficult for her.”
With Madeleine’s support, Sally overcame her depression and was “a total pro on every level,” Shelley insists. Adds Roush, “We remember the series fondly almost entirely because of the sunny appeal of the young Sally Field,” who, he adds, was yet to see her career truly take off, later winning the respect of her peers and two best actress Oscars. “It just goes to show that as much as we liked her then, we like her even more now.”
“Sally Field was a dream to work with!”
— Shelley Morrison,
to Closer